Notes Played Out of Order
by AddisonRules
Summary: A slight AU where Melinda May still has one secret she's had to keep. Spoilers for all of Season 1 of AoS and possible spoilers for the associated Marvel movies.


I own nothing Marvel or AoS, I just needed to get this image out of my head. A slight AU where Melinda May still has one secret she's had to keep.

* * *

The first time it happened was their first night at the Playground. Too worn down after everything that had gone on the past few... well, last two years... Coulson had bedded down in his Bus bunk, feeling exhausted but unable to close his eyes for anything. The next thing he knew, he'd been startled by the sound of metal hitting the floor. Phil looked around expecting an enemy and instead found himself alone in front of a wall covered with carvings that made no sense to him. Then his eyes found the knife on the floor, saw his bare feet, and Coulson understood.

He had done this.

Legs wobbling beneath him, the new Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. made his way to Melinda May's bunk. His body slammed into the door as his strength began to give way. But a beat later she was there, arms around him, guiding, pulling him toward her own bed.

"Just lie down, Phil. Please."

He couldn't help but follow her instructions, and then he felt her hand against his cheek, the gentleness making him want to curl up and never leave the warmth of her presence.

"You'll be fine. Just sleep."

As his eyes lost the war to stay open, Phil was certain any attempt to sleep would be haunted by the terror in his gut over what might have triggered this episode. But he was wrong.

He'd never been so happy to be wrong.

_The feeling overwhelms him and what he knows is that he isn't deceiving himself. There has never been anything in his life that resembled this... the intensity, the need, the craving to both touch and be touched... it's unique in a life that has known both real love and rich sexual attraction._

_Passionate is a starter adjective for what exists between them, and Phil knows how lucky he is that they had this chance. It could've slipped past them; almost had. And yet here they are, his whole being absorbed in hers, and instead of being weakened by the surrender, he's stronger than he's ever been. _

_He knows from the way she pulls him tighter, anchoring herself to his body, that they're both in the same place in this moment._

When he woke again, May was sitting beside him, hand touching his arm, eyes open and lacking the fear he expected.

"Skye recognized the etchings, Phil. We don't know what it is yet or what caused you to write them, but we do know that it wasn't HYDRA programming. It's the same information they wanted Amador to get, the image Ward captured with his eyeglass camera."

"We need to find the source," he says, trying to put his boss' hat on despite the unyielding leaden weight in his limbs. He's greeted with a half-smile for the effort, but then May stands, pulling the sheets and blankets into some kind of order before settling them back down over him.

"We will. I made an executive decision. We're headed to New York."

Her plan was instantly clear to him, and Coulson wanted to protest. This needed to be planned, talked about, thought through. But per usual, Melinda was already on the page he'd just turned to.

"They're our friends, and you need their help. The rest will work itself out."

Phil nodded, too tired to argue with her. She was right. Stark and Banner were friends and they needed answers. He couldn't risk putting his own people at risk now when they were just a nascent S.H.I.E.L.D. in a world that didn't trust them.

"I had such a wonderful dream," he said, and her hand squeezed his.

"Dream it again," she commanded gently, her weight rising from the bed even as the last bit of strength in his fingers tried to keep her close.

The second time it happened was their third night in New York. Their team was scattered through the Tower... Skye trading tech knowledge with Pepper, Tony and Tripp sharing stories of the legendary men from their families, and Jemma was tucked away in the lab with Banner working on a new way to help rouse Fitz while Jarvis electronically guided the search Tony and Bruce had created to try to decipher the writings from the wall... both Coulson's and Garrett's.

She found him in Tony's garage, the carvings spread over a wall in the vast space that had once housed every boy's favorite toys, but now only garaged the two necessary vehicles Pepper and Tony needed for their daily lives.

"Phil, can you stop?"

May told him later, when he woke up, that he did stop. He didn't look at her, but he stopped and let her take the nail from his hand and guide him to bed.

_The feeling overwhelms him and what he knows is that he isn't deceiving himself. There has never been anything in his life that resembled this... the intensity, the need, the craving to both touch and be touched... it's unique in a life that has known both real love and rich sexual attraction._

_Passionate is a starter adjective for what exists between them, and Phil knows how lucky he is that they had this chance. It could've slipped past them; almost had. And yet here they are, his whole being absorbed in hers, and instead of being weakened by the surrender, he's stronger than he's ever been. _

_He knows from the way she pulls him tighter, anchoring herself to his body, that they're both in the same place in this moment._

_Phil lets himself dive into her, his whole self so mixed with hers he can't think of anything else but them and the touch of her skin against his, his body inside of hers, and he's dizzy when it ends, his lungs desperate for air when all he wants is the scent of her._

_The ringing from his cell phone takes time to reach him, to clear the haze that has narrowed the world to just them, but it's finally there and he grabs for it, answering without a thought about what might be on the other end._

_"There's a problem at the Dark Energy facility."_

_He sighs. That means he has to leave early. Phil says he's on his way and turns back to her, but she only pushes herself up to kiss him before spilling out of bed to help him pack._

"You don't remember what happens during?"

Coulson put a true scrutiny to his own memories and then shook his head in reply to Banner's question.

"And after?"

"I'm exhausted. Beyond that, it feels like I can barely move. And both times, there was this dream..."

"Nightmare?" Tony asked, but Coulson shook his head again. There's a temptation to keep the secret because the dream makes him feel... whole, which seems so odd because he didn't know that he felt less than that until the images in his sleep made it clear. Still, Melinda has made him see that the secrets are less important than their team, than S.H.I.E.L.D... he has to be honest if he wants to find answers.

"It's me with a woman, one I love deeply. We're just... together, and then I have to leave. This time it was longer. I left her to... well, it was a few days before I..."

"Pulled your messiah act," came Stark's finishing clause, but there was amusement in his voice instead of bitterness. He and Pepper and Banner had taken the news rather well, actually. The death tolls from HYDRA's incursion into S.H.I.E.L.D. were nightmarish, and everyone affiliated with the agency founded on the ideal of "protection" had lost people they cared for deeply. Having a friend returned, Pepper said, was something to celebrate not to be pouted over because you didn't know about the party until after it had started.

"Must be your cellist, no?"

Phil felt his eyes jerk toward Tony in a response he didn't quite understand. He felt... what was it? Annoyed? Defensive? Neither made much sense. It was a logical assumption since last Stark knew, Phil had been seeing Audrey. It made perfect sense.

Only Coulson couldn't make the math work. He knows time wise it fits. He knows emotionally it's correct. But he can't ever remember the connection between him and Audrey feeling like the one in the dream. He'd cared for her, loved her even, and their physical relationship had been satisfying and loving. But the dream wasn't about satisfying and loving. The woman in the dream was too much of everything he could ever feel or think or want and no... no, it wasn't Audrey. He couldn't see her face, but he knew it wasn't Audrey.

"It's okay, Coulson," Banner offered, the warm smile that would never match up to the alter ego of this man shining on his face. "It's just a dream. If it's not your girlfriend, it's okay. It's not cheating in a dream."

"Can you tell Pepper that?"

Stark's joke broke through the knot of tension in Phil's gut, and he chuckled along with his friends. It was just a dream after all. He had enough real problems to wrangle without adding fantasy ones to the pile.

_The feeling overwhelms him and what he knows is that he isn't deceiving himself. There has never been anything in his life that resembled this... the intensity, the need, the craving to both touch and be touched... it's unique in a life that has known both real love and rich sexual attraction._

_Passionate is a starter adjective for what exists between them, and Phil knows how lucky he is that they had this chance. It could've slipped past them; almost had. And yet here they are, his whole being absorbed in hers, and instead of being weakened by the surrender, he's stronger than he's ever been. _

_He knows from the way she pulls him tighter, anchoring herself to his body, that they're both in the same place in this moment._

_Phil lets himself dive into her, his whole self so mixed with hers he can't think of anything else but them and the touch of her skin against his, his body inside of hers, and he's dizzy when it ends, his lungs desperate for air when all he wants is the scent of her._

_The ringing from his cell phone takes time to reach him, to clear the haze that has narrowed the world to just them, but it's finally there and he reaches for it, answering without a thought about what might be on the other end._

_"There's a problem at the Dark Energy facility."_

_He sighs. That means he has to leave early. Phil says he's on his way and turns back to her, but she only pushes herself up to kiss him before spilling out of bed to help him pack._

_The words are there in his throat, begging to come out. He wants to ask her to come with him. She could if she wanted to, but he won't ask. It's not a fair demand. So Phil helps her pack his suitcase and then he cherishes the interruption of the steam in the shower, a cold blast of air whipping around him as she slips into the flow of hot water beside him._

_"Water conservation," she teases even as the tidal wave of sensation begins again and he's pulled into her for another precious few moments before he has to let her go._

_She walks him out toward Lola, his bathrobe stolen from his belongings, the belt pulled twice around her waist to keep it closed. Phil smiles at the sentimentality. It's so not like her and yet so incredibly like him. Maybe he's rubbing off on her._

_"When I get back, we should get married."_

_The words aren't what he planned but they're what he means and for a moment he has to fight down the urge to take them back because she looks scared and stunned and if he's just ruined things..._

_But then her hand is on his cheek, pulling him into her, and after their kiss breaks he hears the faintest "yes" as her whisper tickles his cheek._

He wrote something new.

The wall, this time one in the lab, is covered with his usual pattern, but this time there's a new line... and it's one that isn't in Garrett's etching or in the image from the Amador incident.

The best way to describe what he'd seen in his team once the discovery was made would be to call it a mixed reaction. Excitement from Banner and Skye, who seemed certain that the new information could open a door for them with decoding the symbols. Jemma was worried but trying to cover up with her usual professionalism. Stark and Pepper were guarded, and Tripp had excused himself to do what made him happiest... checking the perimeters and focusing on their security.

But Coulson had known from the moment he'd woken that something was wrong.

He left the code or alien language or whatever the hell it was to his friends and went to the one place there might be answers.

It wasn't a dream. He was certain of it now. Memories were mining their way up from the depths of his gray matter, perhaps unearthed by the hyper focus his episodes were causing in his brain.

The problem was, again, the math felt wrong. The woman wasn't Audrey. But he'd been with this woman before all hell had broken loose in that Dark Energy lab. Yet his memories told him the cellist had been his only romantic partner in the year or so before Loki had torn his heart and his life in two halves.

Before death and after.

The dates in the file were no help. It was off... all of it... by a good six months from what he remembered. The day he'd been dispatched to Portland, when Marcus Daniels had been taken into custody... it was all off by six months from his memory. So which was he supposed to believe... the written record of S.H.I.E.L.D. or a mind he knew had been turned inside out in pursuit of his resurrection?

_He's due at the helicarrier in just under an hour, but he can't stop himself. Phil sees the store logo and he pulls Lola to the curb._

_Tiffany's looms in front of him, and he feels his palms start to sweat. Then Phil laughs at himself. He's already gotten his yes. This is the easy part._

_He picks a platinum band with square-cut diamonds set into a channel. It's showy in its simplicity and beauty and yet if she ever needs those hands for more than typing, the ring won't get in her way._

_He smiles as the clerk hands him a small bag with the blue box inside, then walks back to Lola. The packaging will stay in the car for now, and he'll have to have it sized when he gets home. But he slips the band into his inside jacket pocket, a press of his hand enough to feel the metal through the fabric that covers his heart. _

"Phil, please let go."

Her voice reaches him and pulls him fully awake only to leave Phil staring down at the death grip he has on her arm. That Melinda could have gotten free on her own goes without saying, but likely not without injuring him, and if there's one thing he knows with certainty in this world of dead men walking and gods and aliens, it's that Melinda would choose saving him pain over herself, always.

His fingers loosen and she pulls her arm into herself, rubbing the skin gently.

"I'm sorry."

She shakes her head and drops her fingers to his, linking them.

"You were scared. Was it a different dream?"

He sits up, though he's careful to not break their physical connection. He's learned from the very recent past that lashing out at her won't help, but he needs to know. More than anything he's ever needed, Phil Coulson needs the truth.

"They're not dreams, are they?"

Melinda looks at him unfazed, her expression as constant as ever.

"What else could they be?"

"Memories. They're memories."

She swallows and squeezes his hand. When he looks at her he can see the effort it's taking for her to keep control, to be the Melinda May he's needed her to be.

It's that more than anything that tells him he's finally decoded the cryptic puzzle his mind has returned to him.

"It was always that way with us, wasn't it? That feeling that we were the same person, that even though we were capable of being separate, that it was like denying fire oxygen? That's what it felt like... an intense fire you couldn't run away from."

Melinda takes in his words and holds them inside, turning them over. Only when she seems settled on what it means that he's spoken them does she finally answer.

"Yes. It was always like that, from the first night."

Phil lets out a deep breath of relief. He knew, of course. Even if he can't remember how or when or any of the details hidden away in his lost memories, these remnants had told him "Phil and Melinda" were real. But hearing her say it injects a strength into his bones that he has been lacking quite possibly since his return from the dead.

"How did it happen?"

"I saw you with Audrey and I... I knew I'd lose you if I didn't tell you that..."

He leans into her, his hand rising to Melinda's cheek as she tries not to fall apart. It's been so long since he's seen her like this... not the defiant, emotional May who he battled in the days following the truth about T.A.H.I.T.I. coming out... but this Melinda who is so afraid of letting him see what she feels.

He remembers that from long ago, from the life he'd spent with his best friend and partner before Bahrain had stolen her away.

"How long?"

"About four months. You tried to make things work with Audrey even after I told you, but eventually you showed up at my door. Fury was the only one who knew. You let people think you were still seeing Audrey when they asked about your personal life."

He wonders about that, about why he didn't just end things and go to Melinda's arms the instant she opened her heart to him. He's always loved her. But maybe that was the problem. Maybe it had taken him a moment to realize that it was the kind of love you couldn't turn away from for anything or anyone.

"Why can't I remember?"

The rush of misery over her face is too powerful for Melinda to push it down, and it steals her breath for a moment before she can go on.

"You were in so much pain when they were bringing you back. Fury... he said you kept calling for me, but I hadn't been read in yet. He was planning to let me in to see you once you stabilized, but..."

"But I had forgotten us."

She nods and Phil drops his other hand over their clasped ones, hoping to give her strength because he needs this to be done. He needs this secret unburied.

He thinks he needs it almost as much as Melinda does.

"The doctors said that because I was what you thought about for comfort... your mind somehow tied me to the pain and so when they erased those memories..."

"They erased us."

"That part of us, yes."

The sadness in just those few words speaks volumes, and Phil wonders if he could have done the same. If Fury had come to him, said, "Melinda needs you to watch out for her, but she doesn't remember she loves you. She may never remember, Phil," could he have been strong enough to greet her every morning and share meals, to let Melinda confess her fears to him or make her laugh when she needed it knowing he could never be to her what he'd once been? Phil can't imagine how much strength it took not give it away, to never once try to make him remember them when Melinda's mission was to try to make sure the other memories that had disappeared never surfaced.

Phil almost asks May why she didn't tell him once he remembered T.A.H.I.T.I., reclaimed the agony that his second life cost him, but he stops himself. The thought of her agony holds the words inside of him and ties them off forever.

If he couldn't remember on his own, he can see her deciding it was best to let him go. Melinda always chooses him.

But he does remember. Not the details maybe, but he remembers the love.

It's time for a different choice.

"I bought you a ring," he says, hoping to show her that he has a piece of them back even if he can never put all the scattered bits back together.

"I know."

The words surprise him, and Phil watches as she stands and moves to the small safe in her room. Melinda punches in the combination and then pops the door. A beat later she's back with him, her left palm cradling the perfect band from his memories.

"Fury gave it to me before he knew he could bring you back."

Phil takes the ring and holds it up for inspection. It's definitely the one he's seen in his sleep as the small pieces of their past have come back to him.

"It was in my pocket," he says, confident in the truth of the picture he has now.

She nods, and he knows that it means it was there when the staff ran through him, that it was probably soaked in his blood when Fury found it. But Melinda kept it even when she thought he was lost to her, and Phil closes his hand around the ring tightly.

"I know what it feels like to love you, Melinda. I remember what matters."

That's when she breaks, when the wall Agent May built around heartbroken Melinda crumbles and the torture of remembering what they'd lost crashes in on her.

Phil moves quickly, the ring still clutched against his palm as he pulls her to him. The platinum and diamonds are a remnant, too, of a promise Before Death Phil made and couldn't keep. He marvels again at the strength it took for Melinda to stay true to hers even as he tries to hold her together while she shatters.

"I missed you," she half cries, half whispers against his chest, and he can't make that ache in her voice go away. Phil knows that. The hurt is too deep.

But he's here. That's what he has to give. He reaches over and sets Melinda's ring on the nightstand so both his hands are free to tend to her.

"I missed you, too," he says, fingers moving through her hair. "But I'm home now, Melinda. I finally made it home."

She kisses him them, needy for him, and Phil returns the kiss with equal desperation because some part of him really has known all along that something wasn't right. He didn't know what it was, but now it's clear that his mind has been trying to give Phil the answer all along. It didn't mean to steal her away; it was only trying to protect itself and him from the torment of T.A.H.I.T.I.

That inner voice that drove him to the truth about his resurrection wasn't just about "feeling different." It was a hidden knowledge that he needed to find his way back to this; back to her.

There are a list of reasons why they should stop kissing, why talking now is probably smarter or healthier or something that Phil doesn't care about because his hands have already made their way under her shirt and Melinda's skin is too soft and warm to stop touching.

When she moves to pull his shirt over his head, Phil decides to stop thinking at all.

The feeling overwhelms him and what he knows is that he isn't deceiving himself. There has never been anything in his life that resembled this... the intensity, the need, the craving to both touch and be touched... it's unique in a life that has known both real love and rich sexual attraction.

Passionate is a starter adjective for what exists between them, and Phil knows how lucky he is that they had this chance. It could've slipped past them; almost had. And yet here they are, his whole being absorbed in hers, and instead of being weakened by the surrender, he's stronger than he's ever been.

He knows from the way she pulls him tighter, anchoring herself to his body, that they're both in the same place in this moment.

Phil lets himself dive into her, his whole self so mixed with hers he can't think of anything else but them and the touch of her skin against his, his body inside of hers, and he's dizzy when it ends, his lungs desperate for air when all he wants is the scent of her.

He turns on his side and finds Melinda looking at him as if he might disappear. So he curls himself around her. Phil eyes the ring where it rests beside the bed and smiles as sleep pulls at him, drawing him under.

Phil's sleep that night is restful and deep and free of any need to carve out alien symbols. There are also no recalled images from his past. He doesn't need to dream to find Melinda anymore. She sleeps beside him, hand over his heart, protecting it still.


End file.
